Teachings

The teachings are important, and the teachings cover the whole field of life.

– J Krishnamurti

Question: What is the essence or mainspring of your teaching?

Krishnamurti: That would be rather difficult to put in a few words. As I have tried to explain listening is an art. Most of us don’t listen, because what we hear, we translate according to our pleasure and pain, according to our dislikes, according to our conflicts and the formulations of what we already know. Nor do we generally see anything, because what we actually see is interpreted in his way or in that. We may look at a flower botanically, but very few ever look at a flower non-botanically – which is the only way one can see the essence, the beauty, the whole loveliness of the flower. In the same way, your perception of the significance of what is being said depends on how you have listened to all these talks. You can’t possibly understand by merely picking up a few ideas, few concepts or opinions. If that is what you have done, then I am afraid these talks will have very little meaning. Either you listen to the whole, or you hear nothing at all. And if you have listened to the whole of what we have been talking about, then you will see for yourself the essence of it; you will never ask me what is the essence. This is not just a clever way of turning the tables on you, sir. It is an actual fact. You cannot hold the waters of the sea in a garment or capture the wind in your fist. But you can listen to the deep murmuring of the storm, to the violence of the sea; you can feel the enormous power of the wind, its beauty and its destructiveness. For you must destroy totally the old for something new to be.